Global

NEW ORLEANS -- I got out of our truck and approached the four cops standing in front of the Hwy 11 bridge over Lake Pontchartrain. The bridge, which leads to New Orleans, was five miles across Lake Pontchartrain, five miles of Hurricane Rita flexing her muscles far out in the gulf, with blasting winds up to 90 mph. The bridge was secured to all traffic except military and police. My driver and colleague, Jacob, shook his head forlornly as we approached the road block; his blond afro seemed to droop in disappointment as the Louisiana State Trooper walked up to us.

“Bridge is closed. Don’t y’all listen to the radio? No one gets across.”

I waved my press badge at him, and said we needed to get to New Orleans to cover the storm. The trooper asked me to get out and tell my story to the other four cops waiting by the cars. Their eyes all snapped immediately to the Czech military pistol I was wearing in a holster on my hip.

“What in the hell is that?”

PEARL RIVER, LA - Despite the resignation of under qualified former FEMA director Michael D. Brown and the subsequent appointment of Coast Guard Vice Admiral Thad Allen, residents of coastal Louisiana are vocally dissatisfied with the federal agency’s performance in the post-Katrina Mississippi Delta. I spoke with Jennifer Pulsifer, as she sat next to me at three in the morning, trying to get through the formidable busy signal presented to Red Cross callers day and night. My “office”, a ramshackle shed partially crushed by a large tree and swarming with giant, belligerent cockroaches and violent clouds of mosquitoes, is one of the few places in the neighborhood with a working phone. Locals come by at all hours of the night to place calls to various relief agencies. Nearly every call I’ve overheard has been frustrated with busy signals and off-putting messages.

Pulsifer remarks, “Come tax time they want your money, but right after a disaster they don’t want to help you out. Unless you left the state; then they’ll hand you a check if you’re in another state.”

Jennifer applied to FEMA for financial aid, but ran into difficulties.

From now on, all hurricanes should be named "George." They can have different numbers. Rita needs to be renamed "George 05-18". The next one will be George 05-19. Next year's first will be George 06-01, etc.

And amidst increasingly huge mass protests to end it, the "War on Terror" also needs a more accurate moniker. It should be "Bushwahr 3."

Poppy Bush's four-day Desert Storm was Bushwahr 1; the attack on Afghanistan, Bushwahr 2. This senseless, hopeless assault on Iraq is thus the third in the series.

So we now mark this as the terrible time of Hurricane George05-18, Bushwahr3.

These disasters will thus bear the name of their perpetrators. Hurricane Rita has had multiple causes, but its extreme force has been enhanced by Bush's insane energy policies, as was Katrina's.

Rising ocean temperatures help power wind storms. The Bushlove for fossil/nukes put billions of dollars in Bushpork into the pockets of GOP cronies who own them. Meanwhile the administration Bushkills the conservation and efficiency measures that would cut global warming.

Republicans like to brag that, as a political party, they are more fiscally responsible than their Democratic counterparts. Well, thanks to President Bush’s four years in office that theory can now take up residence in the urban legend department.

If anything, Bush’s tenure as president proves that the Republican tax cuts (which everyone knows truly benefits the wealthiest one percent), drastically slashing funds in the federal budget for much needed improvements to the country’s aging infrastructure (a perfect example being the outdated power grid), and trying to get away with launching wars on the cheap, have cost taxpayers and their unborn grandchildren more money than anyone could have ever imagined.

Most of the very correct objections to the Carter-Baker report appearing in the days since its release have focused on the deeply objectionable Voter ID recommendations. Less attention has been paid to the watershed significance of the Commission’s call to congress to establish a nationwide requirement for a voter verified paper record (VVPR) of every vote and the subtle, but devastating, flaws in the details of that recommendation.

AUSTIN, Texas -- So here are all the liberals going into a giant snit just because George W. Bush appointed a veterinarian to head the women's health section of the Food and Drug Administration. For Pete's sake, you whiners, the only reason he chose the vet is because Michael Brown wasn't available.

If you recall, Ol' Heckuva-Job Brownie had to go home, walk his dog and then hug his wife after exhausting himself in his triumphal handling of Hurricane Katrina. Otherwise, he'd have been Bush's first pick.

Now, even the veterinarian doesn't get the job -- just because those professional feminists raised such a stink. What's wrong with a vet? They know a lot about birth and udders and stuff. If the mother is having trouble giving birth, you grab the baby by the legs and pull it out -- it's not brain surgery. Then you worm 'em, you tag 'em and you spray for fleas. Why the fuss?

Two days after Hurricane Katrina struck New Orleans, the Walgreen's store at the corner of Royal and Iberville streets remained locked. The dairy display case was clearly visible through the widows. It was now 48 hours without electricity, running water, plumbing. The milk, yogurt, and cheeses were beginning to spoil in the 90-degree heat. The owners and managers had locked up the food, water, pampers, and prescriptions and fled the City. Outside Walgreen's windows, residents and tourists grew increasingly thirsty and hungry.

The much-promised federal, state and local aid never materialized and the windows at Walgreen's gave way to the looters. There was an alternative. The cops could have broken one small window and distributed the nuts, fruit juices, and bottle water in an organized and systematic manner. But they did not. Instead they spent hours playing cat and mouse, temporarily chasing away the looters.

All last week I had a rare opportunity – to join several impressive speakers on the “Bring Them Home Now” tour’s northern route.  Al Zappala, whose son was killed in Iraq last year; Tammara Rosenleaf, whose husband is due to deploy to Iraq this fall; Stacy Bannerman, whose husband has already served a tour in Iraq; Carlos Arredondo, whose son was killed during a second tour in Iraq; Elliott Adams, former Army paratrooper in Viet Nam; and two Iraq war veterans: former Marine, Michael Hoffman, and Cody Camacho, former Army Specialist.

At each stop I was with them: Detroit, Buffalo, Syracuse, Rochester, Albany, Amherst, and Boston, we explained what motivated us to be on the tour.  We condemned the war and ongoing occupation.  We urged people to attend the massive demonstrations planned for September 24-26 in Washington, D.C.

In each city I saved part of my five minutes to go beyond urging participation in the march and rally on the 24th, and plead for people to consider participating in the civil disobedience planned for the 26th as well.  This quote from Howard Zinn was particularly well-received.